


Coming Home

by LilyC



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8886580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyC/pseuds/LilyC
Summary: Everyone but the media is avoiding Jagr.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sophie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophie/gifts).



> I hope you have a great yuletide!
> 
> Thank you P and J for the help.

Jagr walks into the locker room distracted, head still back at home, contemplating the advisability of midseason drinking followed by morning practice. He puts his stuff down and sits, half unlacing his shoes before realizing something isn't right. The room is unnervingly quiet. The usual chitchat died down almost as soon as he walked in, everyone focusing on their own gear to a degree that really makes no sense for a regular practice two days after a win. Jagr grew up around players, has spent his entire adult life in rooms like this, could've spotted the tension in seconds if he were on the lookout; he can tell, from the way most are very carefully not looking at him, that whatever it is, it's about him. 

His eyes scan the room. Everyone's hurrying to gear up and hit the ice in record time, none of their standard morning-practice fucking around. Most are sneaking glances at him and then hurriedly looking away when caught. Some might actually be blushing. What the fuck? He turns to Luongo—maybe a grownup can tell him what's going on. Lu throws him a smile from across the room, getting up from his stall already in full gear, blocker under his arm, and hands him an iPhone.

“Management wants to talk to you before practice, Jaro.” He gives Jagr a surprisingly forceful tap on the shoulder, a weirdly intense look on his face, and walks down the hallway to hit the ice. Those who haven't managed to flee yet rush out to follow him. 

Jagr looks down at the phone in his hand, puzzled. He can't think of anything he's done in the past few weeks that could lead to trouble. If he were somehow getting traded, the team reaction would be completely different. He has no idea what could've made everyone so uneasy. The phone has its browser open to Deadspin, and he squints at the grainy picture before the headline even registers, the blurred image jolting his memory. 

In the picture, his back is turned to the camera, and he's pressing someone—a very clearly male someone—against a car in a parking lot. It's a blurry and distant shot, but the implication comes through loud and clear. 

He remembers this night, the kid who all but threw himself at Jagr in a bar bathroom, the anonymity of the Florida summer making him stupid and careless. It happened months ago. How has this only come up now, if there are pictures? He scans the article. Anonymous source, of course, no names for the kid, the picture bad enough that it shouldn’t be hard to deny everything. The insinuations are heavy-handed and precluded by the mandatory “allegedly” every time. Typical asshole blog fodder. 

He's about to to put it away as yet another gossip item he has to let die out without comment when he notices the link at the end. “Still in doubt? See more pictures after the jump! (NSFW)." Well, shit. 

Jagr is painfully aware of what happened _after_ he pushed the kid against the car. It was a memorable night, really; the kid had a wicked mouth on him and a lot of enthusiasm. He impatiently waits for the page to load, then scrolls down with growing dread. The image quality is still awful, probably someone with a smart phone inside a car, but it's easy to figure out what was going on. And to guess at his identity, too, with his face on full display as the kid kneels down between his legs to get his pants out of the way. 

He swears out loud. The most revealing picture has been censored with a black bar covering his crotch and the guy’s face, but he knows the internet well enough to be absolutely sure that uncensored versions will show up soon enough. Either way, there's no denying what happened, especially in the last one. He's kissing the kid, one hand on his hair and the other inside his pants, grabbing his ass, the kid’s jeans hanging low enough on his hips to show that he is not wearing any underwear.

Jagr sets the phone down and takes a deep breath. The room is now empty, the silence actually welcome for once. He considers ignoring it all, just getting dressed and hitting the ice as if nothing is happening, but it would really be postponing the inevitable. He gets up, summoning the patience required to go deal with Panthers management. This is going to be an extra fun meeting.

The team owner wants to deny it all. The team publicist wants him to come out, record a You Can Play video and be a good role model. His agent wants to know why he is even talking to the team before talking to him. His coach looks like all he wants is to be anywhere but here, which Jagr can sympathize with. In the end, they decide, without his participation, to "no comment" everything, limit his media appearances as much as possible and only allow vetted reporters to ask questions. 

He somehow ends up in the media scrum after practice, even though he never even managed to change into his gear, and, unsurprisingly, the very first reporter to get a word in starts by breaking the rules.

“Jaromir, any comments about your friend in these pictures?” he asks, holding up a phone with the kiss picture open, as if anyone present could misunderstand him. Of course. Jagr just knows this is how it's going to be from now on, knew that before he even walked out of that meeting. The news is too fresh, too scandalous, for anything else to happen—media avoidance plan or no.

He is too old to deal with this bullshit. 

He puts on a grin. “Yeah, man, sometimes I like to change things up. Cute boy, cute girl. Keeps things interesting, you know?” He watches as the eyes of the team's publicist get bigger and bigger. Every camera in the room is turning to him as the reporters start yelling questions, no one even pretending anymore that they're here to speak to any of the others. After that, it's pretty much a free-for-all. 

When he checks his phone much later in the day, after they finally let him go home, there are over a hundred messages, ranging from surprise to congratulations to questions about his mental stability. He deletes all of them, one by one. Close to the bottom, there is one from Mario. “What, your conquests are younger than my kids now? Have some shame, old man!” Jagr snorts a laugh, and keeps it. This one arrived early in the morning; Mario must have been one of the first to see the news. 

Jagr expects the story to become old news after one or two weeks, as all sports gossip does. Hockey is not that interesting, the Florida Panthers less so, and people never seem to care too long about what goes on down here. But one month later, still answering questions about this and pretty much nothing else in post-game media scrums, he realizes he may have underestimated the impact of “Jaromir Jagr, living hockey legend and first openly gay player in the NHL.” Never mind that really, he also likes women just fine. "Bisexual" just doesn't have the same appeal to the press, it turns out. He texts Mario about how people should get over it already, and gets back a picture of his own calendar in the Lemieux kitchen, Nathalie stroking his picture with an exaggerated sad face. “You broke the hearts of an entire generation of Canadian women!” says the caption. Jagr laughs and texts back to explain how much he still likes pussy, in as much graphic detail as he can manage. 

The media, in the days following his admission, pulled out of storage everything they had on him, looking for anything that could have a double meaning. The internet has been restlessly poring over every single image of him interacting with teammates looking for hints of something else there, some clue about any impropriety going down between him and another player. They particularly like the ones with young players or superstars. There are a lot of images of Mario in those montages. 

Everyone who has ever played with him seems to have been asked if they've sucked his dick, and that's pretty much half the league at this point, plus a sizeable chunk of retired players. It’s kind of entertaining to watch it unfold, in a perverse trainwreck kind of way. He gets the YouTube videos sent to him by past teammates followed by countless eggplant emoji. Jagr knows it's their way of showing support; he sends them eggplant emoji right back.

He watches Giroux blushing bright red, denying everything way too emphatically—the red face clashes awfully with his hair—and takes a screenshot, sending it to Briere. (“Getting the blame for your sins now?” with a smirking emoji. He gets back a middle finger emoji, which is really uncalled for.) Someone put together a compilation of Crosby interviews, 23 minutes long, a dozen different ones, in all of which he is absolutely composed and polite as he responds to all the questions and says nothing at all at the same time. It’s an impressive skill. And then there's Mario, who may have been asked about their relationship more in the past month than in his entire life—no small feat, given that people were already obsessed with it before. Mario's approach is to give the most innappropriate answers imaginable, full of double entendres, where he neither confirms nor denies anything; he's driving the entire media insane trying to figure out whether he's trolling them or not. 

Jagr tries to shift the focus back to his game. He gives no interviews; he stops answering questions. He's playing well, and he is scoring even more than he was at the beginning of the season, but they are still en route to possibly crash and burn out of their playoff spot, and he can tell the organization is pissed at him, regardless of the public support, point streak or no point streak.

One of the beat reporters writes a column about how, if gay anal sex is what has been keeping Jagr in the game and playing that well at his age, everyone else should get on that ASAP. It has helpful tips on how to score a gay hookup for the good of your team, and it’s beyond ridiculous. Mario texts him the link with “Tried that, didn’t work, still had to retire. :(((” 

They are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs with eight games to go on the season. The Panthers sit him out as a healthy scratch for all eight games for being a distraction. They end the season in just the right spot to not make the playoffs but also not get a decent draft pick. For the first time in the whole shit show, he's actually annoyed with it. 

The team calls him in for a meeting a week after the Panthers' season ends. Three months ago, he was planning to renew his contract here for one more year, the Panthers all but begging him to stay. Now they want to talk conditions and morality clauses and how to make sure he won’t be a liability to the team's younger players. Jagr walks out of the meeting without even presenting a counterproposal. He's too old to deal with this.

He skips the gym and goes home, too angry to work out. Keeping conditioning up for a theoretical season he might not play because of something off-ice, even if he's still the best goal scorer on the team, is not something he's in the mood for right now. His phone beeps with a text, and it’s Mario again; apparently the first question of their playoff press conference was about Jaro. 

He opens the link and watches Mario, clad in Pittsburgh Gold gear (thank God the pale Vegas monstrosity is gone), smiling to the cameras and answering with a straight face that it has been a long time since he's shared a room or a shower with Jagr, and he couldn’t possibly remember all the details of the experience, so maybe he should invite him over this summer for some nostalgia by the pool. The press laugh, following up with questions about putting the trophy in the pool again, picturing another party with the Cup at Mario’s. The video freezes on Mario’s face winking at the camera with a smile. 

Jagr knows that they're wrong. Mario doesn't mean the Cup party itself—well, maybe he does, but it's some very specific moments of said Cup party and that summer between their wins. He can picture it in his head like it was yesterday, Mario handing him a cold drink and sitting down with him on the edge of the pool, their feet in the water, Nathalie lying down in the sun, tanning, wearing huge sunglasses and nothing else, her naked skin glistening with sweat in the summer sun. The memory of how he was eager to please them and horny all the time is clear in his mind. How easy and uncomplicated and _good_ it was. He puts his phone down, opens his laptop, and books the first flight to Pittsburgh he can find. Screw it, he is done with Florida. 

He arrives at the Lemieux house in midafternoon, parking his car in the ridiculously large empty driveway. All the kids are still at school. Mario is traveling with the team for the away games against the Rangers. Right. He probably should have warned someone he was coming, or at least booked a hotel. 

By the time he gets out of the car, Nathalie is waiting for him at the front door with a smirk.

“Welcome home, Jaro." She tugs him in by the shirt and closes the door behind them. "Took your sweet time, didn’t you?” 

He forgets about the hotel.


End file.
